Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsFerrari

Vettel urges Ferrari caution

Sebastian Vettel has urged Ferrari to keep its expectations in check after such an encouraging start to pre-season testing.

Ferrari topped the times on three of the four days of testing at Jerez last week, with Vettel fastest on both the days he was in the SF15-T. Despite the strong start, Vettel echoed the caution of chairman Sergio Marchionne by saying Ferrari needs to be judged on the improvement compared to last season rather than against its rivals this year.

“We have to remember where we are coming from,” Vettel said. “There is a lot of change going on, new things and a lot of stuff that we learned. In that regard it was good to run and it’s important to keep running, to learn the car, understand all the numbers and make sure we improve on the next test.”

Explaining his schedule between the first two tests, Vettel says he’ll be spending a lot of time in the simulator to make sure he and the team are fully prepared for Barcelona next week.

“I’ll be [at Maranello] for some simulator running to try to maximise in all areas. It’s the same at the track, we try to run and keep improving the car and then we have some time to understand and analyse. Not just myself but the whole team will be very busy trying to learn and move forwards.”

Click here for the full gallery of the first photos of the SF15-T

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.